Words Worth Remembering on Ronald Reagan’s Birthday

David Applegate is one of seven children of a farmer’s daughter who survived childhood pneumonia, the Great Depression, the Great Ohio River Flood of 1937, the loss of the family farm, and World War II.His father, the son of a railroader, dropped out of school after the ninth grade, joined the Army to fight the Nazis at the age of fifteen, and was later buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.David worked his way through high school and college as a seasonal farmworker and laborer before heading off to law school, where he began his legal career by handling employment discrimination cases for the State of Illinois.Today he is a partner in a Chicago law firm, and has been honored by the Judges of the Northern District of Illinois and the Federal Bar Association for his continuing and career-long commitment to handling employment discrimination and prisoner’s rights cases as a volunteer attorney for no fee.

Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the birth or Ronald Wilson Reagan, the nation’s 40th President. Fifty years earlier, at the age of 53, he made a prescient observation that remains true today. From his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech in 1964:

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. … You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right, there is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

“Affordable care” … “Income equality” … “Common core” … these and other popular words and phrases of today are merely names for more schemes leading the nation down, not up.

It’s a good thing Ronald Reagan isn’t around to see it.

Watch Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech below:

Words Worth Remembering on Ronald Reagan’s Birthday was last modified: February 6th, 2014 by David Applegate